


a route obscure and lonely

by Nightwing_Hunter



Series: Dreamland [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I Tried, I can't write dialogue, Insomnia, Lise please read this, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki is an actual control freak in some of the worst ways, Loki is an idiot, Nightmares, angst with a semi-happy ending, what is plot, what is setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 16:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21059975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightwing_Hunter/pseuds/Nightwing_Hunter
Summary: When the dust settled and the war had passed, Loki found himself wandering New Asgard, sleep escaping him. Or rather, he escaped sleep. But not even a god could go without sleep.





	a route obscure and lonely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).

> Ok so I know I should update [Ripples of Space and Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399273) but I wrote this instead.  
  
I basically just read a bunch of [Lise’s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise) stuff and thought “She gave a bunch of quality Loki angst to me, so I should gift her something in return.” And then I wrote this, and I’m not completely happy with it, but every time I tried to rewrite it, it got progressively worse.  
  
So anyway I hope you guys enjoy this =)

At night, Loki tended to wander through the streets of New Asgard. He had long since memorized the city’s outline, if it could be called such. The roads were direct, straight, didn’t snake around as he had seen from other cities.

City. They were now a city, not a kingdom, not a realm, just a _ city _ , little more than a town. It was laughable. Still, Loki was thankful that some, albeit not many, of Asgard had survived. He was thankful that _ Thor _ survived.

It changed everything. It changed nothing. They were alive and well, and Thanos was gone, dead, disintegrated into the winds as merely ash and dust, but Loki could still feel blankets as hands and still flinched at every movement. He still woke and slept in stops and starts, as if the ghosts of all he had done and that had been done to him were breathing down his back, leaving little room for rest. And even if he _ did _rest, the ghosts haunted him in dreams, spectres of torment waiting wherever he hid. All that he feared was gone, yet he still feared them. 

So he wandered. Wandered the streets, the homes of those who lost everything, yet still managed to build something new. Wandered the woods that coated hills, rolled by the hands of time and shaped by the fingers of nature. Wandered, eventually, to where he was now—the pier, at the far end of New Asgard, which looked out into the endless ocean. 

He didn’t mean to end up here. He never meant to end up where he did. Loki had simply walked, followed his instincts, toward whichever place his feet led him to.

Loki was barefoot, dressed in nightclothes. He could feel the wooden grain of the dock beneath his feet, the chill of the waves permanently rooted into it. The salt of the ocean seemed to seep through his nostrils and into his lungs. 

The dock felt as if it were shaking with the weight of waves, and Loki wondered, distantly, what would happen if the dock suddenly and inexplicably broke from land and pitched into the ocean. 

He wondered if he would stop it, or if he would let it. Let it, along with him, sink into the icy depths of the ocean. Let nature carry him into whichever abyss it would want to. Let go.

He realized, in a sudden shift, what he must look like. His hair oily, wearing nothing but loose nightclothes, staring into the ocean before him. Questioning what would happen if he were to fall. 

The sun hadn’t even risen yet.

Footsteps sounded behind him, but he didn’t turn. Loki knew those footsteps—albeit slightly heavier than he remembered—as well as he knew his own.

“Loki,” Thor said, a certain… edge seeded into his voice, “should you not be asleep?”

“Shouldn’t you?” he replied, still not turning.

He heard more footsteps, and as Thor drew closer, tension began to snake its way through him. He could feel the heat coming off of Thor, and remembered somewhere that winter was coming.

He wanted to laugh. Winter. A time where everything would be there, shown, red eyes jarring against deep blue skin. A time when he wouldn’t, _ couldn’t, _wander as he wished to. A time when his layers of protection could be peeled off as easily as the skin of an onion.

But it wasn’t there _yet_. Loki could deal with it later, and find ways to protect himself in a time far away from now, away from this moment. 

He had the luxury of time. He remembered when he had come back, through the portals and into the battlefield of Earth, the elation in him. As if a knot somewhere deep down had been untied. But he had quickly found, in the nights after the battle, after Thanos and his army became the very dust they wished to create, the fear was still there.

The part of him that flinched at sudden movements. The part of him that told him to run and keep running, until the world blurred together and lines were no longer lines, and minutes were seconds, hours were days, until everything--space and time--were nothing but constructs. The part of him that remained afraid of dust.

The first nightmare hadn’t been of his own death. It wasn’t of _ his _ hands digging in, cutting off air, cutting off _ everything, _ until a _ crack, _ sharp and clear, then darkness. That dream came later.

No, the first nightmare was of years ago. The Fall and what happened after. The children of Thanos and their ever-creative ways of carving into him. 

He had forced himself, after the battle, to think of Thanos by his name. Not the Mad Titan. Not the Great Destroyer. Not the Dark Lord. Simply Thanos.

_ Only a name. _ That was what he had told himself. _ Only a name. Only a name. Only a name. _

Thor’s voice cut through the haze of thoughts like a knife breaking through skin. “Loki?”

He turned, this time, needing to see him, to see something other than the roiling, endless ocean. He managed to keep his voice light, airy, as if wandering the streets in the early hours of the day were a perfectly normal occurrence. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?” he said, a flicker of something embedded in the words.

A flash of annoyance went through him. Loki remembered, in some of his first days back, how Thor clung to him like a burr. To be fair, Loki had clung back, needing to see, needing to _ feel _ that they were both alive.

“I’m fine,” Loki snapped, and began to walk back towards the village.

Thor reached out in a sudden movement, wrapping a hand around Loki’s arm. He almost flinched, but he controlled himself, tapered down that instinct. Thor’s grip was strong, jarring against the half-asleep world that Loki’s wandering feet led him through.

Thor’s voice was soft. “Loki… when have you last slept?”

“A few hours ago,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

It was a truth. Perhaps not the whole truth, but what was the point of having a silver tongue when he couldn’t use it?

“Nothing,” Thor said, too quickly. “It’s just… you look tired.”

Loki looked into his brother’s eyes. He clearly wasn’t the only one not sleeping, but Thor, unlike him, had a good reason for sleepless nights. “Thor,” he started, “I am_ fine _ . And I could ask you the same thing. When did _ you _last sleep?”

Thor frowned at him. “Asgard—,” he started.

Loki cut him off. “Asgard has Valkyrie for a reason. You should rest. Besides, rest lends wisdom. Your decisions will be more thought out.”

Thor gave him a look. “Perhaps you should follow your own advice. It would be good for you.”

Loki smiled. “When have I ever done anything good for myself?” 

He wove an illusion of invisibility around himself and stalked away.

* * *

Sleep had always eluded Loki. At first, it was innocent—he simply wanted to read or tinker or do whatever he wished _ more. _It seemed like an awful waste of time. 

But after the fall, after Thanos, after death held him by their bony hand one too many times, his insomnia became less innocent. There was no curiosity in what he was doing anymore. It wasn’t about fear, so much as it was about _ control _. He couldn’t control the nightmares when sleeping—lucidity during sleep came only when he was dream walking. 

Norns, he couldn’t even control his movements, his magic, when he slept. Loki remembered, once, waking up at three in the morning to find his room trashed, as if a storm had gone through it, ripping everything to shreds. He had fixed it easily enough, but still… If he were ever to sleep with another person in the room, then there was a high probability that they would come to harm. 

He couldn’t control what happened when he slept, but he _ could _ control when he slept.

Until, of course, he couldn’t.

* * *

He avoided Thor for a total of about five days and nights—all sleepless—before his brother gave up and sent Valkyrie to find him. Loki was in the new library, reading random pages on the internet. It was a fine pastime, as it let him grow more knowledgeable about Midgard while, at the same time, keeping him awake. Loki had found on the first night that the screen pent up the tiredness in him, like a dam holding the brunt of a river back. By now, he was in a sort of daze, somewhere between the world of the waking and that of the dead, and it took most of his focus to avoid falling asleep.

“Wow,” Valkyrie said, boredom, thick as honey, dripping from her voice. “You look like shit, Lackey.”

He nearly jumped at the sound of her voice, but he stopped himself. Turned. She stood by the door’s threshold, leaning on its frame. She, too, had dark shadows under her eyes, as if insomnia had stolen the color from her face, as well as, Loki noted, the fullness of her cheeks. But she (and Thor), had the excuse of ruling.

Loki was well aware that he probably looked much the same, but he glamoured himself to look less pathetic. Apparently even that was failing.

He smiled, an expression that felt too sharp, and said, “Pleasure to see you too, Valkyrie. And I must say, you don’t look much better.”

“Yeah, but I have an actual reason for not sleeping for a good while. You, well, you’re shitting around in a library doing a total of nothing.” 

Loki sighed. “You can tell Thor that you found me and that I’m perfectly fine.”

She barked out a laugh. It sounded too loud in the quiet air of the library. “You’re clearly not.”

He was already tired of this conversation, this sharp back and forth, throwing verbal knives in a sort of duel. He found, these days, that most conversations were this sort of... maneuvering. 

He remembered, suddenly, talking with Thanos. Trying—_ failing _ , his mind whispered—to kill the Mad Titan, to save his brother, to save everyone. He remembered large fingers curling, digging in, pain, bright and burning, and he needed air, needed the fingers to recede. Everything was going dark, going black, black as the night, black as the Void, everything was fading, and _ he couldn’t breathe. _

A voice cut through the haze, cut through the dark and Void and black. “Shit, shit, _ shit. _ Loki, come on, _ come on, _breathe.”

He was dimly aware that he was on the ground, Valkyrie’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him, trying in a desperate attempt to stop what was happening. Loki felt, with a sudden jolt, as if he were going off the edge. The line he had walked for five days and five nights, between the waking world and the sleeping one, the edge, the line, whatever he wished to call it, he felt himself fall through it. Fall past it.

And he slipped into the dark.

* * *

Falling. Falling. Falling.

No destination, no direction, no place to land. Simply falling.

The Void stretched forevermore ahead of him, the absolute nothingness stripping him of his glamour, like old bark coming off of a tree, in strips and bunches, showing blue, showing red, showing the monster in him, and all the while he was _ falling, falling, falling _.

Cold tore through him, like a knife splitting flesh. Fingers of ice splintered his bones like an ax cracking wood open, and the cold—too cold, even for him, even for the monster, the thing with red eyes and blue skin. The Void sang to him, the lonely symphony of madness ripping his mind to shreds, as if the dreadful melody was a blade ripping satin.

He tried to hold onto the ribbons of wind, as if they could stop him, as if they would do something other than slip through his fingers like fine sand.

The dark that stretched before him was not of night, but of something sharper. Something darker.

He fell. The darkness closed in.

And fell. Panic burned him alive. 

And fell. The wind roared in his ears. 

And.

Fell. 

* * *

He didn’t remember the landing. Loki only remembered the pain, flaring in him, through him, like waves of fire running through his blood. It was all he remembered at times.

It seemed to take over everything, like a wildfire, blotting out everyone. 

He had no family. No friends. No allies. Nothing but endless pain.

Nothingness.

* * *

It all came in flashes.

Claws digging in, digging _ down _, into the faint recesses of his mind, tearing apart memories, breaking down walls, tearing down the very foundation of his already cracked mind.

A knife dragging through his flesh, through bones, through veins and arteries that bled purple blood, through the tissue that would always heal again, that would always bleed again.

Chains holding him, their links so tight they drew blood.

Hot iron searing into him, burning skin away from bone and flesh away from tendons.

A whip flying through the air, snapping against his scarred and bleeding body.

Screams ringing out, echoing back to him.

A hand wrapping around his throat. 

“You… will never… be… a god.”

A last, desperate plea to the universe. 

_ Snap. _

* * *

When the light finally returned to him, cutting through the haze of nightmares like a river wedged through a cliffside, Loki woke in a bright room. Fluorescent lights shone above him, and they seemed to dance as he tried to focus on them.

Loki could still feel his heart pounding, feel the adrenaline running through his veins like quicksilver. Some of the pain lingered, like the embers of a dying fire.

Dying.

He wondered, briefly, if he was dead, if he could finally, _ finally _ rest. _ No, _ he decided after a minute, _ I cannot be dead. Helheim would not have comforts. Death would not be this merciful. _

The bed was by far not comfortable. It was hard, with little mattress between him and the board, and the blankets were thin and stiff, as if they were paper rather than cloth. Loki had lived in worse places.

There was a sense of quiet that settled over the room. It was not the silent symphony that echoed as it did in the Void, but a silence of comfort, A machine buzzed beside him, not quite breaking the silence, but coating its edges. The noise helped him remember he was alive.

Loki remembered, during each death, _ after _each death, he wondered if he would fall, back into the Void, float there, untethered, indefinitely. Sucked deeper and deeper into the cold and dark, his mind taken apart by the clawed fingers of the Void.

He stood and made his way to the door. Loki drew a slow breath, and opened it.

The glare of fluorescent lights faded as he stepped through the threshold of the door, tapering into natural sunlight. Loki’s steps were still unsteady, as if his dreams still weighed on his bones, dragging him down. 

He stepped out into the hallway. It was long, and held a similar resemblance to the room he woke in—walls white and blank, as if the color had been leached out. Loki began to walk down the center of the hallway, turning corners and picking branches at random, until he found a sitting area with a large window facing towards the ocean.

He was dimly aware of the Asgardians that he passed. This building, Loki found, was a Midgardian healers’ building, the new one built near the center of New Asgard. He stood by the window, watching the ocean.

Footsteps came from behind him. “Thor—” Loki started.

“No.” Valkyrie said. He turned, hiding his surprise. “Just me.”

Loki remembered the panic in her voice, her hands shaking him, trying to wake him. 

“But your brother is looking for you.”

Of course he was. Thor had been doing that for years, hadn’t he? Looking for Loki—searching for him in every way he could. 

Loki stared at her. Her voice was soft, careful, as if he were glass under pressure, as if he would break with any sudden movement. A part of him thought that maybe he would. Glass. Was that what he was now? Sharp enough to cut, sharp enough to kill, but broken, shattered into millions of tiny pieces with a single blow. Sharp and delicate. 

She stared back, her gaze hard. Val may have been being careful with him, but she was still herself. 

“Where is he, then?” Loki asked.

* * *

The room Valkyrie led him to was small, away from prying eyes. Loki could still feel the eyes of the others. He imagined that they were wondering why he was there. 

Thor looked even more tired than the last time Loki had seen him. Thor’s hair was down in a tangled mane, and Loki could see the pressure of the throne on him. He _ was, _ though, getting better than he was before Loki came back. 

“Loki.” Thor’s voice was soft. Damnably, _ damnably _soft.

Valkyrie glanced between the two of them. “I’ll wait outside.” 

She stepped out of the door, leaving Loki behind in the room. It felt too warm, too crowded, suddenly, as if the worry coming off of Thor—practically in waves—took up space. Loki looked down for a breath, then straight into Thor’s eyes.

“Loki,” he said again, slower. Choosing his words carefully, Loki assumed. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Loki looked down again, studied the tile floor. “Will I or can I?”

Thor gave him a look. 

Loki sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Thor frowned. “I wish you took better care of yourself.”

Loki realized, then, that Thor suddenly looked _old_. The weight of the throne, of death’s fingers claiming all that he had, of five years with nothing but an empty town, had left his brother with years ahead of him. 

Thor reminded him of Odin. A king who would rule cleverly and wisely, who would make the best choices, who would fight. And yet. Yet in little over five years as king, Thor had already grown beyond the old man’s lies, grown beyond the secrets that had shattered their family like glass. 

“I’m trying,” Loki said, his voice soft.

A moment of silence stretched between them.

“Was it a nightmare?”

Loki twisted his hands in his lap. “Not _ a _nightmare.”

He stood. 

Thor broke in, “Loki—I know you will not tell me, but… can you come to me next time, wake me perhaps? I do not want you to fear something you need.”

_ Fear. _Perhaps there was fear—there always was, with the fall and Thanos and all that had happened—but that wasn’t what it was about. It wasn’t fear. It was control.

When Loki didn’t answer, Thor started again. “I wish that you could trust me, brother.”

Loki’s words came out scratched. “I wish I could trust anything, Thor. But I cannot. Death has followed me everywhere. Death, and loss, and the memories of everything still cut. I _wish_ I could trust you.”

Thor flinched. Loki hadn’t said it venomously, hadn’t insulted him. He simply spoke the truth.

But truth could be harsh.

Thor wrapped his arms around Loki, careful not to touch his neck, and he sunk into the warmth. 

“Time,” Thor said. “It will only take time.”

_ Time, _ Loki thought. _ But how much? _


End file.
